I love you, Miss B
To know Miss B was to know what it feels like to be deeply and unapologetically loved. Miss B wasn’t just kind, she was the type of kind that looks you in the eyes and tells you what she admires about you without even blinking. She wasn’t just funny, she was the kind of funny that made me think “I can’t believe she just said that, there are tears coming from my eyes I’m laughing so hard.” She wasn’t just faithful, she was the kind of faithful that said “I’m willing to take all the shit this life can possibly give me, prove that I can smile through it because I’m a child of God, give it to Him, and move forward.” And she wasn’t just peaceful, she was the type of peaceful that declared “I REFUSE to let anyone steal my joy.”
Miss B was born into a life of guaranteed heartache. Raised in an abusive home, she ran away at 15, deciding to forge her own place in the world. One of her siblings, only 13 at the time, was already hooked on drugs by then. Soon after moving out of foster care at age 18, Miss B found herself on the streets. She recounted to me how a looming figure once told her he had a job for her before leading her down an alley to a neon sign that screamed “dancers wanted.” Personifying her youthful naivete, Miss B remembered thinking “I was on the pom squad in high school. I could be a dancer.” It wasn’t until she walked inside that she realized that this particular form of dancing was clothing optional. Forced into the job, Miss B was pregnant later that year. Terrified of the responsibility of parenthood, she married the first person she could find, who ended up getting her pregnant again and beating her to try and force a miscarriage. Thankfully, she ran away and began raising her two children. A few years later, once remarried and pregnant with her third child, she learned that she had AIDS, a final gift from her first husband. Her doctors and nurses treated her with blatant disdain, telling her she would transmit the disease to her children through casual contact and insisting she would die soon. Her third and final child was born HIV positive and died a few years ago at the age of 25, a tragedy Miss B wore on her face until the day of her own death. Despite the unimaginable grief, Miss B also found immense joy in life. She eventually met the love of her life at 37, and their adoration for each other was complicated but palpable. Her life dramatically improved after she moved to Tennessee to connect with Nashville CARES, a local nonprofit with unrivaled HIV/AIDS support. Finally given the respect and resources she needed, Miss B began exploring her own identity and soon found a love of art that propelled her to turn just about everything in her sight into a canvas. In this new rhythm of life, Miss B conjured up a family of nonprofit workers, fellow artists from Poverty and the Arts, and friends from the area. She brought a smile to everyone she met, joking about sex, cussing like a sailor, giving thoughtful gifts, and calling everyone “Baby Girl.” Rather than cowering from the world and the injustice it had shown her, Miss B seemed to use pain to chisel herself into a woman with arms constantly flung wide, as if exclaiming to every new friend “come join me, we’ll heal together.”
Yes, Miss B’s life by the age of 24 was filled with more suffering than the average human will experience in a lifetime, but what made her remarkable was not her story but the way she endured- no, embraced- it. Miss B took it upon herself to create her own family, indiscriminately welcoming others into a love so genuine it was irresistible. I attribute her kindness to the Lord, because I’m unsure where else she would have found positive role models for relationships, given that intimacy seemed to have been a weapon wielded against her body and spirit at every opportunity. I fell into Miss B’s embrace about a year ago, unaware that I would be gaining- and then losing, at least physically- a new role model and family member. We first met through mutual friends at Poverty and the Arts in Nashville. Because one of our Unlocked employees, Gwen, was also a member at POVA, Miss B asked if she could attend Gwen’s birthday party back in September, to which we happily welcomed her. Although the party was a milestone for the young company, I was secretly doubting whether Unlocked was making a difference and if it was truly where the Lord was asking me to put my time, energy, and passion. As a fresh graduate from Vanderbilt, I felt paralyzed by the opportunity cost of the choices in my oh-so-short life. After the party, I agreed to drive Miss B and Gwen home. Waiting in the car while Gwen meandered into a gas station, Miss B looked at me and asked, “Did you know I have AIDS? Do you want to know how I got it?” Taken aback, I cautiously replied that I’d be happy to hear it if she wanted to share. Over the next 20 minutes, Miss B shared her life story with me, stating the unbelievable facts as if she were reading aloud a report about a car crash. Her voice cracked and she began wiping tears when she mentioned her recently deceased son, but she shocked me when she concluded the monologue with something like “and I just wanted to share all of this because I can tell the Holy Spirit is in you, and I love Gwen like a sister and can see the difference y’all have been making in her life at Unlocked, and I don’t know if you can see it but I definitely can. And I’m just really happy y’all are doing what you’re doing, and I wanted you to know that it’s worthwhile.” After dropping everyone off that night, I sat in my car and wept over the immeasurable adversity that Miss B had suffered and the faithfulness of the Lord that He had mirrored my questions back to me as answers, right through Miss B’s mouth. In that moment, I decided to keep working with Unlocked, and I’ll forever be thankful for that. Oh yeah, and we hired Miss B at Unlocked the next week.
When Miss B was biopsied to confirm if she had pancreatic cancer, I sat awkwardly with her husband in the waiting room at the hospital. When I was finally allowed to enter the bustling hive of rooms, I steadied myself before opening the curtains to her cell. She laid weeping, her eyes strikingly blue when contrasted against her puffy red cheeks. As I held her hand, she told me, “I’ve been praying all morning. I told God that I really didn’t want cancer, but if that’s what He’s giving me then I can take it. I want to be a soldier for the Lord, and if I need to go through battles to get there, then I can do it. I trust Him, even if I don’t want it. So it’ll all be okay, and I know that. I’m just scared.” Even as she lay vulnerable in a hospital gown, her life slipping away, she was utterly convinced of the Lord’s goodness and of his control in her life. She was resolute in her stance that the Lord is after your holiness and not necessarily your happiness. That he wants your heart, all of it, and is willing to put you through pain to bring you closer to Him. In an age of unabashed hedonism and subjectivism, Miss B stands as a lighthouse, battered by the waves as she may be, illuminating a perspective of peace and humility. She exhibits an obedience that can only be hard-won out of suffering. Countless times in the past few months, she declared, “If I can turn these diseases into something that will glorify God, then this will be all worth it.”
What’s ironic to me is that many of the prayers I’ve been lobbying God about Miss B seemed to have been answered in the exact opposite way I intended. Miss B and I prayed for peace for her and those that love her; that she would be completely out of pain, a concept that hadn’t been a reality for decades due to AIDS and other health complications; that she would have strengthened relationships with her family and mainly with her estranged children; that her testimony would affect others; and that her husband would come to know the Lord. A direct answer to prayer, she was miraculously able to meet her grandchildren for the first time and visit her two surviving children, who were both baptized that weekend. She rekindled with her husband, and she conveyed to me the ways that he seemed to be thawing towards religion by watching her attitude in such dire circumstances. She spent time with friends, told everyone what they meant to her, and made amends with a world that had mainly shown her hostility. Even after one of her siblings visited “to help” but instead stole her cancer pain medicine and forced Miss B to take out a loan for a return bus ticket, Miss B called and forgave her sibling. After her entire apartment flooded a few weeks ago, destroying almost all of her physical possessions, Miss B declared this earth isn’t her home anyway. She was aggressively peaceful. We prayed for total healing, and maybe death was the only way to achieve that. She’s finally home.
Miss B was born into a life of guaranteed heartache. Raised in an abusive home, she ran away at 15, deciding to forge her own place in the world. One of her siblings, only 13 at the time, was already hooked on drugs by then. Soon after moving out of foster care at age 18, Miss B found herself on the streets. She recounted to me how a looming figure once told her he had a job for her before leading her down an alley to a neon sign that screamed “dancers wanted.” Personifying her youthful naivete, Miss B remembered thinking “I was on the pom squad in high school. I could be a dancer.” It wasn’t until she walked inside that she realized that this particular form of dancing was clothing optional. Forced into the job, Miss B was pregnant later that year. Terrified of the responsibility of parenthood, she married the first person she could find, who ended up getting her pregnant again and beating her to try and force a miscarriage. Thankfully, she ran away and began raising her two children. A few years later, once remarried and pregnant with her third child, she learned that she had AIDS, a final gift from her first husband. Her doctors and nurses treated her with blatant disdain, telling her she would transmit the disease to her children through casual contact and insisting she would die soon. Her third and final child was born HIV positive and died a few years ago at the age of 25, a tragedy Miss B wore on her face until the day of her own death. Despite the unimaginable grief, Miss B also found immense joy in life. She eventually met the love of her life at 37, and their adoration for each other was complicated but palpable. Her life dramatically improved after she moved to Tennessee to connect with Nashville CARES, a local nonprofit with unrivaled HIV/AIDS support. Finally given the respect and resources she needed, Miss B began exploring her own identity and soon found a love of art that propelled her to turn just about everything in her sight into a canvas. In this new rhythm of life, Miss B conjured up a family of nonprofit workers, fellow artists from Poverty and the Arts, and friends from the area. She brought a smile to everyone she met, joking about sex, cussing like a sailor, giving thoughtful gifts, and calling everyone “Baby Girl.” Rather than cowering from the world and the injustice it had shown her, Miss B seemed to use pain to chisel herself into a woman with arms constantly flung wide, as if exclaiming to every new friend “come join me, we’ll heal together.”
Yes, Miss B’s life by the age of 24 was filled with more suffering than the average human will experience in a lifetime, but what made her remarkable was not her story but the way she endured- no, embraced- it. Miss B took it upon herself to create her own family, indiscriminately welcoming others into a love so genuine it was irresistible. I attribute her kindness to the Lord, because I’m unsure where else she would have found positive role models for relationships, given that intimacy seemed to have been a weapon wielded against her body and spirit at every opportunity. I fell into Miss B’s embrace about a year ago, unaware that I would be gaining- and then losing, at least physically- a new role model and family member. We first met through mutual friends at Poverty and the Arts in Nashville. Because one of our Unlocked employees, Gwen, was also a member at POVA, Miss B asked if she could attend Gwen’s birthday party back in September, to which we happily welcomed her. Although the party was a milestone for the young company, I was secretly doubting whether Unlocked was making a difference and if it was truly where the Lord was asking me to put my time, energy, and passion. As a fresh graduate from Vanderbilt, I felt paralyzed by the opportunity cost of the choices in my oh-so-short life. After the party, I agreed to drive Miss B and Gwen home. Waiting in the car while Gwen meandered into a gas station, Miss B looked at me and asked, “Did you know I have AIDS? Do you want to know how I got it?” Taken aback, I cautiously replied that I’d be happy to hear it if she wanted to share. Over the next 20 minutes, Miss B shared her life story with me, stating the unbelievable facts as if she were reading aloud a report about a car crash. Her voice cracked and she began wiping tears when she mentioned her recently deceased son, but she shocked me when she concluded the monologue with something like “and I just wanted to share all of this because I can tell the Holy Spirit is in you, and I love Gwen like a sister and can see the difference y’all have been making in her life at Unlocked, and I don’t know if you can see it but I definitely can. And I’m just really happy y’all are doing what you’re doing, and I wanted you to know that it’s worthwhile.” After dropping everyone off that night, I sat in my car and wept over the immeasurable adversity that Miss B had suffered and the faithfulness of the Lord that He had mirrored my questions back to me as answers, right through Miss B’s mouth. In that moment, I decided to keep working with Unlocked, and I’ll forever be thankful for that. Oh yeah, and we hired Miss B at Unlocked the next week.
When Miss B was biopsied to confirm if she had pancreatic cancer, I sat awkwardly with her husband in the waiting room at the hospital. When I was finally allowed to enter the bustling hive of rooms, I steadied myself before opening the curtains to her cell. She laid weeping, her eyes strikingly blue when contrasted against her puffy red cheeks. As I held her hand, she told me, “I’ve been praying all morning. I told God that I really didn’t want cancer, but if that’s what He’s giving me then I can take it. I want to be a soldier for the Lord, and if I need to go through battles to get there, then I can do it. I trust Him, even if I don’t want it. So it’ll all be okay, and I know that. I’m just scared.” Even as she lay vulnerable in a hospital gown, her life slipping away, she was utterly convinced of the Lord’s goodness and of his control in her life. She was resolute in her stance that the Lord is after your holiness and not necessarily your happiness. That he wants your heart, all of it, and is willing to put you through pain to bring you closer to Him. In an age of unabashed hedonism and subjectivism, Miss B stands as a lighthouse, battered by the waves as she may be, illuminating a perspective of peace and humility. She exhibits an obedience that can only be hard-won out of suffering. Countless times in the past few months, she declared, “If I can turn these diseases into something that will glorify God, then this will be all worth it.”
What’s ironic to me is that many of the prayers I’ve been lobbying God about Miss B seemed to have been answered in the exact opposite way I intended. Miss B and I prayed for peace for her and those that love her; that she would be completely out of pain, a concept that hadn’t been a reality for decades due to AIDS and other health complications; that she would have strengthened relationships with her family and mainly with her estranged children; that her testimony would affect others; and that her husband would come to know the Lord. A direct answer to prayer, she was miraculously able to meet her grandchildren for the first time and visit her two surviving children, who were both baptized that weekend. She rekindled with her husband, and she conveyed to me the ways that he seemed to be thawing towards religion by watching her attitude in such dire circumstances. She spent time with friends, told everyone what they meant to her, and made amends with a world that had mainly shown her hostility. Even after one of her siblings visited “to help” but instead stole her cancer pain medicine and forced Miss B to take out a loan for a return bus ticket, Miss B called and forgave her sibling. After her entire apartment flooded a few weeks ago, destroying almost all of her physical possessions, Miss B declared this earth isn’t her home anyway. She was aggressively peaceful. We prayed for total healing, and maybe death was the only way to achieve that. She’s finally home.
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